Knitting this up in time to wear at the Loch Ness Knit Fest.

Swatch: Swatched on 10.5s, which proved a little tight -- then 11s; got stitch gauge, and a wee bit bigger row gauge. Going with 11s. There is a significant difference in needle size between a 10.5 and an 11, so I will knit the entire sweater body on 11s; will knit sleeve cuffs on 10.5s then switch to 11s for rest of sleeve.

Knitting one less swan dance repeat to shorten it a bit, and one less on each sleeve.

After knitting 3 inches of ribbing, decided the magenta Cumulus was not for me, so I found some sea green, which was my first instinct; I didn’t order it initially because I wanted to try something different, but it just didn’t work out for me. I will be much happier with the lovely pale teal of the Sea Green.

Also, while reflecting on the look of the ribbing, I decided that since I was going to start over I would do a 1 x 1 ribbing instead of the indicated 2 x 2 for a more refined look, with a knitted cast-on edge for tidiness.

• • • F R O G G E D * * *

New sea green Cumulus arrived. Yay! Reboot.

24 September: Knit 3 swan dance repeats -- onward to the sleeves.

26 September: Sleeves: 12 rounds of 1 x 1 ribbing for cuffs on US 10.5 needles; switched to US 11 needles for 2 stockinette rounds before beginning swan dance setup round in the pattern. Making increases every 6 rounds instead of the recommended 7 in the pattern.

28 September: 1/3 of the second sleeve knit.

29 September: finished second sleeve.

30 September: Joined sleeves to body. Whew!! Onward to the home stretch.

There was a suggestion in the Kate Davies Love group that a few more rounds could be knit before beginning decreases on the back of the yoke … another knitter was also interested in trying it to raise the back neck of the sweater.

2 October: Sailing along with yoke decreases -- this feels like it is taking forever, but the look is so nice. I went down a needle size to a US10.5 after ten rounds, and will go down to another needle size to a US10 at the end of sixteen rounds.

4 October: 3 needle bind off of the neck done. Grafting the bottoms of the sleeves to the body done. Tried it on, and it’s properly huge and cozy, yay! Just need to weave in the ends and give it a bath and a block.

10 October: Ends woven in underarm stitches grafted and it has had a lovely spa day. Drying now.

11 October: Still drying!

12 October: ALMOST dry, but still a tiny bit damp. Taking a picture anyway. Off to Scotland on Sunday!